"Lynda Thornton" wrote in message
news
In article , Franz Heymann notfranz.
writes

"Tumbleweed" wrote in message
...

"Franz Heymann" wrote in message
...

"Tumbleweed" wrote in message
. ..
"Franz Heymann" wrote in message
...

snip

Finally finally, you could probably get by until then by just
refilling
the
barrel with clean water, that will give the lily something
better
than
rotting gunge to overwinter in.

Surely the most straightforward way of coping is to simply
replace a
quarter
or so of the water daily until the problem disappears?

Franz

Dont forget there are no fish. I doubt the lily would care whether
the
water
was 25% changed or all in one go,and you'd also be sure to get all
the
rotting gunge at the bottom which a water change wouldnt
necessarily
touch
and which appears to be the root of the problem.

But surely one would scrape up any excesive amount of rotting stuff
by
hand
as a first step towards clearing up the barrel?

Indeed, but it was you who advised 'simply' a 25% water change and no
mention of removing gunge.....

My fault for being too brief........

Besides which to remove the gunge, probably the simplest way is it to
take
out the lily and then just wash the whole barrel out. Otherwise you'll
stir
up the gunge and create a mess which will stay there if you only change
25%
of the water.

Actually, when all's said and done, that is obviously the answer.

Franz


Re completely emptying the barrel, there is pondlife at the bottom
including at least one lesser water boatman - what should I do with
that, and possibly others, if I empty everything out?

Keep it in a bucket. Hopefully your barrel will be ready for re-use a day
or so later.

It's also not that easy to empty the thing to be quite honest, it's an
enormous wooden barrel 3ft diameter/high, weighs a ton and there's no
way I could tip it with even a small amount of water in it.

Plastic tubing for use as a syphon is obtainable at any tropical fish shop.
Syphon into a smaller container through a sieve for catching the waterlife.
But don't suck up the gunge. That will have to be removed by hand after the
barrel has been emptied.

Franz


Also, it's
on gravel, so it could make quite a mess if gunge etc splashes out all
over during cleaning. I'm not feeling like going through all this as
I'm sure lots of you can guess!

Also, in response to someone's comment, I hadn't realised that water
lilies were regarded as annuals, even in this climate - I thought that
once established they would come back every year? I certainly wouldn't
want to have to fork out every spring for one season's growth and a few
flowers!!

I really don't want to go down the electric pump route - there's no easy
way of hooking it up to a power supply or laying cable. I was hoping
there might be a solar option, ie a solar panel with a submergible pump
attached which could sit at the bottom and hopefully not disturb the
water too much, but in such a small barrel I suppose it would be likely
to be too turbulent and extremely costly as I can't find this kind of
thing on the web. Maybe the only answer is to get rid of the water
lily, even though this was what I really wanted in the barrel in the
first place, so that I can put my floating solar fountain on it next
summer and re-oxygenate the water that way. It's just a shame and I
really would have liked a water lily feature in the garden, but I'd much
prefer to be rid of the stench!

Lynda